Hair transplantation procedures are well-known, and typically involve (e.g., in a patient having male pattern baldness) harvesting donor hair grafts from the side and back fringe areas (“donor areas”) of the patient's scalp, and implanting the harvested follicular units in a bald area (“recipient area”). Historically, the harvested grafts were relatively large (3-5 mm), although more recently, the donor grafts may be single follicular units, which are naturally occurring aggregates of 1-3 (and much less commonly, 4-5) closely spaced hair follicles that are distributed randomly over the surface of the scalp.
In one well-known hair transplantation process, a linear portion of the scalp is removed from a donor area using a scalpel cutting down into the fatty subcutaneous tissue. The strip is dissected (under a microscope) into component follicular units, which are then implanted into a recipient area in respective incisions or puncture holes made using a needle. Forceps may be used to grasp and place the individual follicular unit grafts into the needle puncture locations, although other instruments and methods are known for performing this task.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,585,746 discloses a hair transplantation system utilizing a robotic system, including a robotic arm and a hair follicle introducer associated with the robotic arm. An imaging system is used to produce a three-dimensional image of the patient's scalp, which is used to plan the locations to receive hair grafts. The entire disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 6,585,746 is incorporated herein by reference.
No matter what type of hair transplant procedure is adopted, it is the aim of the physician to provide his patient with a natural looking head of hair. Currently physicians try and do this based on their experience based on procedures performed on prior patients, hoping that when they harvest hair from donor areas of the patient's head and implant it into recipient areas, they manage to do so in such a way that a natural looking head of hair results. However, it is not likely that a realistic image of what the patient might look like may be obtained based on prior experience with other patients. Everyone's hair is different, it is not of the same thickness, texture or density, and hair does not lie or fall in the same way on heads of different people. Moreover, not everyone's head shape or size is the same either, so there are many differences with respect to how the hair falls, and how it is parted too. Consequently, a result of a hair transplantation procedure performed on one patient does not necessarily look the same if the same procedure is performed on a second patient. Currently, it is only possible for one to look at the before and after photos of other people, and to guess what the outcome of a hair transplantation procedure might be.
Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,806,121 and 8,104,480 (hereinafter collectively, “Bodduluri”) illustrate systems and methods for planning transplantation of follicular units into a body surface of the patient. Both patents are incorporated by reference herein.